May I tell you about Bible tales? I mentioned 5 to 6 percent in dollar volume in our business is in the weird field. We have no crime comics.
Mr. Beaser. You have no crime comics under your definition of crime comics.
Mr. Froehlich. I think if a crime book is one which will depict a conventional crime story, the story of John Dillinger, then all the mass media are guilty of the same thing we are guilty of.
We published a comic magazine called Bible Tales. The sixth issue: is out now. We were very anxious to move into this field if we could. There are no competitive books of this type on the market. We feel that it is a fine worthwhile type of publication and there may be a real market in the United States and Canada. Our editor went up to Yale Divinity Schoo! for guidance as to the sort of subject material that should go into this book. Each issue is a combination of better stories, better incidents, from the Old Testament and the New Testament.
We normally print 350,000 copies of a conventional magazme in the western field or in the teen-age field. We started with only 265,000 copics for the first issue. If there is a real market for this sort of thing we felt that because the print order was one-third less than we would normally print, that the sales percentage would be abnormally: high, We went right ahead with the second and the third issues, The artwork is far superior. It is the finest artwork we could buy. "The editorial is most carefully handled. The book cost us better than 40 percent more than the conventional comic, not including the income from advertisiny, which of course was lost in this thing. Un- fortunately our final print order on the last issue is down to 230,000 copies. The book came in with a 34 percent sale, meaning we had sold only about 80,000 copies, and on that issue we lost over $6,000. To- date we have lost over $29,000.
Mr. Beaser. What did you sell that for?
Mr. Froehlich. Ten cents. That magazine also enjoyed the finest display we could ever hope to get from the wholesalers of the United States. We previously communicated with them and teld them what we wanted to do and what the purpose was, They went all ont in giving the magazine a break saleswise, andl in spite of that there are only 80,000 people in the United States who ure willing to lay down a thin dime for a book of that caliber.
Mr. Beaser. Do all these magazines come under the editorship of a single person?
Mr. Froehlich. No, sir, we are departmentalized to a certain ex- tent. We have some men's books, heavy on adventure. Those books: have an editor. The motion picture magazines have an editor. The TY book operates under the same, but the associate editor is charged with them.
Mr. Beaser. You have one for comic books?
Mr. Froehlich. For comic books and two assistant editors, and so on.
Mr. Beaser. Does the editor have time to see the material before it is printed? I just want to get the mechanics first.
Mr. Froehlich. Does he ever see it?
Mr. Beaser. Does the editor in charge see the material before it is printed?
Mr. Froehlich. Absolutely. He buys it.
